“I have a quotation in a story, a piece of fiction that won't be published until this summer,” I told Portago, “something that I thought at the time I wrote it you might have said: that of all sports, only bull fighting and mountain-climbing and motor-racing really tried a man, that all the rest are mere recreations. Would you have said that?”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Portago said.
Ken W. Purdy (August 1957) "Portago; The real story of the sizzling Spaniard" Sports Cars Illustrated (Ziff-Davis: New York) vol. 3 no. 2 p. 63
• :“There are three sports that try a man,” she remembered Helmut Ovden saying, “bullfighting, motor racing, mountain climbing. All the rest are recreations.”
Ken W. Purdy (27 July 1957) "Blood Sport" The Saturday Evening Post (Curtis: Philadelphia) vol. 230 no. 4 p. 92
• An early attribution to Hemingway is the essay "Why" by Gene Hill, published in Guns & Ammo and reprinted in 1972 in A Hunter's Fireside Book: Tales of Dogs, Ducks, Birds and Guns (Winchester Press: New York) p. 96:
I tend to agree with Hemingway who said something to the effect that only mountain climbing, bull fighting and automobile racing were sports and that everything else was a game.
• See Barry Popik (May 13, 2012) “Auto racing, bullfighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports—all others are games” The Big Apple
There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.
What It Means
This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games." in the context of "Based on a 1957 Ken Purdy quote, first mentioned in a posthumously published interview with Alfonso de Portago:
“I have a quotation in a story, a piece of fiction that won't be published until this summer,” I told Portago, “something that I thought at the time I wrote it you might have said: that of all sports, only bull fighting and mountain-climbing and motor-racing really tried a man, that all the rest are mere recreations. Would you have said that?”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Portago said.
Ken W. Purdy (August 1957) "Portago; The real story of the sizzling Spaniard" Sports Cars Illustrated (Ziff-Davis: New York) vol. 3 no. 2 p. 63
• :“There are three sports that try a man,” she remembered Helmut Ovden saying, “bullfighting, motor racing, mountain climbing. All the rest are recreations.”
Ken W. Purdy (27 July 1957) "Blood Sport" The Saturday Evening Post (Curtis: Philadelphia) vol. 230 no. 4 p. 92
• An early attribution to Hemingway is the essay "Why" by Gene Hill, published in Guns & Ammo and reprinted in 1972 in A Hunter's Fireside Book: Tales of Dogs, Ducks, Birds and Guns (Winchester Press: New York) p. 96:
I tend to agree with Hemingway who said something to the effect that only mountain climbing, bull fighting and automobile racing were sports and that everything else was a game.
• See Barry Popik (May 13, 2012) “Auto racing, bullfighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports—all others are games” The Big Apple" to mean that wisdom is timeless.
About Ernest Hemingway